I've worked in a few countries and now in Slovakia. The TEFL industry here is pretty poor also, but they have proper laws protecting teachers from unscrupulous schools.

There's no real perfect school. There's always one bad apple. My school at the moment we have it pretty good. I came from the bottom up so know how it is for new teachers and teachers with problems. It's a lot better here than it was in Thailand.

I really enjoyed my time in Thailand but the school life does wear you down. I made many friends and we seemed to have many of the same stories. Docked salaries, tax evasion, employing teachers without work permits etc. To be honest, it all seemed very dodgy. Not a place you can take yourself seriously unless you're suitably qualified. It felt lawless and that scared me.

I hate whining teachers who bitch and moan. If you've signed a contract then stick by it, but there certainly were many times teachers had a genuine grievance and were simply dismissed as being negative. I didn't like that. The school could basically do what they liked and if you didn't like it you were being negative. If you really didn't like it you were told to leave or were dismissed.

A lot of teachers moaned but I left. I'd advise anyone else to do the same. Instead of complaining about moaning teachers, ask why they're moaning. We simply dismiss them as negative without asking why. Similar to the war on drugs. We condemn people as bad in society for taking drugs yet we don't ask why they take drugs. I guess it's not convenient to know the answer to that

Tim